blogs/rabbigoldberg

What do you see in this image? A vase, or two faces looking at each other? This famous optical illusion was developed by the Danish-Jewish psychologist Edgar Rubin, as part of his work on what he called the figure-ground distinction. Normally, when we look at something, our brains automatically differentiate what is the main figure and what is in the background. So, for example, when we read printed words on a page, our brains focus on the words...Read more...

When we meet our ancestor Jacob at the beginning of this week's Torah portion, Va-yetzei, he is a man on the run. Having finagled the status of firstborn from his brother and father, Jacob flees for his life and is en route to Haran, his mother's birthplace. One night on this journey, Jacob has his famous dream of the angelic beings going up and down a stairway to heaven. God promises Jacob that he will inherit the covenant of his father and...Read more...

I typically do not give a sermon at a Bar Mitzvah, but given the events of the previous week, I want to share a few brief words. In particular I want to address the young people who are with us today. In our Torah reading this week, we read about the death of Abraham. “Abraham breathed his last, dying at a good ripe age, old and contented; and he was gathered to his kin” (Gen. 25:8). But then, we read a curious but extremely important...Read more...

US Steel was an iconic American company that flourished in Pittsburgh in its heyday as an industrial center. Its logo, which also became the logo of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team, features three diamonds: yellow for coal, orange for iron ore and blue for steel scrap�"the three ingredients of steel. The diamonds represented the great power of an alloy, a combination of different things that was stronger together than any of them were on...Read more...

This week's Torah reading, Va-yera, contains the Torah readings for Rosh Hashannah, including the famous story of the binding of Isaac. The story has generated an enormous amount of commentary and discussion. The story raises core questions of what the purpose of this “test” was, and how it can be that a moral God would command someone to murder his own child.

Following a certain strain of commentary on the story, I understand it as...Read more...